November 12th, 2020

When the alarm goes off on Monday morning, and you begin a new week of work, what motivates you to get out of bed and into your office (virtual or otherwise)?

What if you could take a step back for a moment and realign your priorities?  What if we could take an honest look at what is really important to you and construct your life to fit what matters to you.

The most powerful thing you can do for yourself is to figure out your “why”.  When done properly it makes work more engaging. It makes time with friends and family more rewarding.

I call this “why” a financial foundation because it forms the basis for everything else in your life.  When properly understood it drives all of your decisions and motivations.  It is the basis upon which goals are established.

When I am working directly with a client, I use a series of questions and am continually asking them to dig deeper to understand their financial foundation more clearly.

It’s not enough to say, “I want to make a lot of money.” Why do you want to make a lot of money? It’s not enough to say, “To provide a good life for my family.” Why do you want to provide a good life for your family?

For me, the desire to provide for my family is built on a serious, but enjoyable, sense of responsibility for their futures.  With my time and money, I strongly believe that I can build better lives for all of us. I want my family to feel fulfilled and to leave the world a better place than we found it.  When I spend time with my family having fun, it is because I want them to do the same.  I want to be the best version of myself to empower them to be the best versions of themselves. That is my “why” and my financial foundation.

Building your own financial foundation takes a level of self-awareness that can be difficult to achieve by yourself. I believe that by following the process outlined below, you will be able to discover your own “why”.

Set aside some time with minimal distractions to think about (and possibly discuss) the answers to these questions.  Personally, I like to think about these types of questions while I am driving or on a hike.  Sometimes I like to sit down with a pen and paper and start free-flowing ideas.  I also talk things over with my wife. It is helpful for me to get her feedback and we are able to speak openly about these things. 

Find an avenue that works for you, there isn’t a wrong way to do it.  

Since you will have to direct yourself through this process, acting as your own guide, I have built a question framework that will help you to explore your own financial foundation.  In order to prepare yourself, we start with preliminary questions from Carl Richards and George Kinder.  These questions will help you to take a step back from your daily life and look at the bigger picture.  Work through them all.  This should be thought-provoking and drive a sense of self-awareness.

Time is money, as the cliche says. Time and money are our most finite resources that require different types of management. When you figure out where you spend your time and money, you should be on the right track to determine what is important to you right now. 

There are no wrong answers here. You may even find that where you spend your time and money are not necessarily reflective of what is important to you. That would be a significant breakthrough!  

Our next set of questions will help to refine your thoughts even further. Richards’ questions ask you what you are doing presently. These following questions ask what you would do with a hyper-focus that is created by some extreme scenarios.

Now it’s time for your big why question.  Keep in mind how you spend your time and money now.  Think about what you would do if you had all the money you could ever spend and think about what would happen if you had less time on this earth.  

Why is money important to you? 

Allow yourself to explore this question but make sure you come back to one single, most significant priority.  Do not settle for the first answer that comes to your mind.  Ask yourself if there is another layer to uncover.  Personally, I refine my thoughts on this question all the time and have developed a clearer view of why money is important to me.

Now you can start to think about what your goals are and what you are doing to accomplish these goals.  Do they align with your financial foundation?

When your financial foundation, goals, and actions all sync together you will find that it is easier to focus your efforts on the areas of your life that bring your deep fulfillment. 

When that alarm goes off on Monday morning, remind yourself of your why and then get up, pour a big cup of coffee and get after your goals.

E-mail your “why” to Dan Granucci, CFA, CFP(R) at Dan@IronPathWealth.com.